Canada's Last Witchcraft Case Dropped

Here's some good news from Canada. The ridiculous "pretending to practice witchcraft" law is finally dead, as the last case brought under the archaic law has been dropped. Timmins psychic Tiffany Butch was charged in December, just before the law expired. Last week the charges were withdrawn, ending the era of Canadian witchcraft prosecutions.

Butch was charged on Dec. 11, 2018 by the Timmins Police Service with pretending to practice witchcraft – fortune telling contrary to section 365(b) of the Criminal Code of Canada. Two days later that section of the Criminal Code was formally repealed.

Speaking on the Crown’s decision to withdraw the charge, Sabourin said, “I don’t believe they felt it was in the public’s interest, particularly in view of the fact the first charge was a Practising Witchcraft charge which days afterwards was removed from the books because it was seen as so archaic and not applicable to our Canadian laws.
“The Crown supplanted that with a (charge of) fraud under ($5,000), and from my perspective, there certainly wasn’t evidence to support that.”

Butch said it’s an old trick amongst competing psychics to send a friend or family member for a reading and then have them go to the police alleging fraud in hopes that it will discredit the competitor and hurt their business. Butch admitted, after the charges were laid, “I was in a daze because I didn’t understand what was going on because none of my customers were bothering me, or threatening me or was trying to report me or even asking me for refunds.

“I think the Crown attorney finally realized, and possibly the judge realized, that this is two psychics at war, which is an old witch’s tale in a small town. This happens when you have two psychics in a small town.”

Why Canada's Witchcraft Law Needed to be Scrapped

Canada has finally struck down its archaic "pretending to practice witchcraft" law. In a previous post, I pointed out that existing fraud laws are sufficient for prosecuting scammers and confidence artists whether they defraud clients by claiming paranormal abilities or not. It made little sense to me how opponents of the law could claim otherwise, since Canada does have comprehensive laws prohibiting fraud that would have applied to every case I had previously come across.

But then there's this. Tiffany Butch of Timmins, Ontario, was charged under the law only two days before it was due to be repealed. I don't know all the facts of the case, but if the account from the article is true it sounds like the law is being applied in a discriminatory and problematic manner. That's why it needed to be scrapped.

Authorities have charged Butch, 33, of pretending to practice witchcraft over an incident that allegedly occurred in October, weeks before the law was scrapped last week. Police in Timmins, in northeastern Ontario, described Butch as a “self-proclaimed spiritualist, medium and clairvoyant.” They say she promised to protect a client from “some form of potential danger” to her family and tried to elicit payments in return.

Butch contends that she’s not a witch, but a psychic, and that she has been one since she was 11. Her alias was merely a “cute name” her friends and family called her, she said. She said she never advertised herself as someone who practices witchcraft. The charges against her are false, she said, and fellow psychics — her rivals — have conspired to frame her, though she declined to name anyone.

She said that sometime in October, a woman came to her office in Timmins and asked for a crystal ball reading. But, Butch said, she told her that she was not in business at that time. “I don’t believe that I even read for her,” Butch said. “I don’t believe I even provided this woman a reading.”

Putting these two accounts together, the sense I get is that something like this happened - the woman approached Butch and asked if she was a psychic and could give her a reading to help protect her family. Butch replied that she was and could do a reading for some sum of money. The woman refused to pay, and when Butch refused to read for her, the woman reported her to the police. That's not fraud - no money changed hands. But because Butch replied that she was psychic, she still committed a crime under this stupid law.

Many religions including my own accept the existence of paranormal and/or psychic abilities. And if I were in a position where a lot of people were getting on my case to cast spells for them I would of course charge for my time. I don't because I make plenty of money at my day job already. If I lived in Canada, though, I apparently could be charged the moment I asked for even a dollar or something ridiculous for my services. As I mentioned before, the law doesn't include any way to show that you are an actual spellcaster rather than "pretending."

So repealing the law and using existing fraud laws instead means that this wouldn't be a case, which is a good thing. There certainly is good reason to charge psychics and the like who bilk clients out of large sums of money through various scams. On the other hand, just charging a reasonable rate for time spent casting a spell is not the same thing at all, and the idea that it should be criminalized basically suggests that members of esoteric religions are all scammers by default. That implication is not just wrong, it's offensive.

Celene Dion's Satanic Clothing Line

Canadian singer Celene Dion has been accused of Satanism. Not because she worships the devil or practices witchcraft or supports religious freedom or anything like that, but because she has recently released a line of unisex clothing. Oh, the horror! Apparently, all you need to do to become a card-carrying Satanist is to sit on the sofa in sweat pants. Maybe that's why fundamentalists are up in arms about Satanists being everywhere, because let's face it - sweats are very popular.

“I’m convinced that the way this gender thing has spread is demonic,” said Msgr. John Esseff, a priest and exorcist in the Diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania. “It’s false. I don’t even know how many genders there’s supposed to be now, but there are only two that God made.” The article also accuses Dion of hiding occult iconography in the clothing itself (“one pair of sweatpants has a number 3 on one knee and a 6 on the other. Three 6’s?”), suggesting that the range is not only “disturbing” but also “hideously ugly”.

“Who would pay $77 for a baby blanket with skulls or $161 for a jacket that looks like a trash bag?” asks the article’s author Patti Armstrong, a statement that suggests she is seemingly unfamiliar with the work of Demna Gvasalia. While Dion is yet to comment on the whole fiasco, she has previously said that the line was intended to enable “younger people to grow on values of equality with the freedom to strengthen their own power of personality based on mutual respect.” Which sounds a lot more reasonable than an evil spirit attempting to manipulate children through a range of casual, unisex leggings but there you go.

It also makes for smart sales. If you don't need separate versions of your clothes for men and women you can save a lot on production costs. Then, when you sell it at the same prices as comparable gender-typed clothes you make more money. As if you really need separate versions of sweatpants for men and women - the whole point of them is that they're loose and comfortable, so they don't need to be fitted.

Canada's Stupid Witchcraft Law

For several years now, the Canadian government has been discussing the repeal of a law prohibiting "pretending to practice witchcraft." The law may finally be going away, but not before two more people were charged with the offense. The criminal cases themselves seem sound - according to the allegations, both defendants defrauded their clients using psychic and fortune-telling scams. My problem with the law is not that it prohibits scams, but rather that it carves out a special exception for "witchcraft-related" scams when it seems to me that what is going on is more properly fraud and can be handled under the same statutes.

Two Canadian women have been charged with pretending to practise witchcraft, breaking a little-known law in Canada's criminal code that could soon be out the door. The first charge was levied against Dorie "Madeena" Stevenson, a fortune teller from Milton, Ontario on 18 October after a months-long investigation. She is accused of defrauding a client of C$60,000 ($45,700; £35,700) in cash and property.

A week later, Toronto psychic Samantha Stevenson was also arrested in a similar but unrelated investigation. Police allege she convinced a man the only way to get rid of "evil spirits" in his home would be to sell it, and transfer the proceeds into her account.The accused often advertise themselves as a psychic or religious healer, and demand large sums of money to help remove curses or evil spirits from clients, police say.

"What we typically see is a tendency for perpetrators to take advantage of persons when they are in their most vulnerable state," wrote Det Sgt Dave Costantini of Halton Regional Police, in a press release. "Victims are manipulated into believing something bad will happen to them unless they remit cash. We even see incidents where victims are required to make purchases and remit these purchases in order to be cleansed. When victims cannot be squeezed any longer, the perpetrators rely on the victim's embarrassment in not contacting police."

The charges could lead to Canada's last witch trials, as the section of the law banning pretending to practise witchcraft will soon be repealed. In June 2017, the federal government proposed a bill repealing dozens of outdated sections of the criminal code, including the law against pretending to be a witch.

To be clear, if the allegations are true I don't have any problem with these folks being convicted. What I have a problem with is that there's a special law just for those who "fraudulently pretend to exercise or to use any kind of witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment or conjuration." Fraud, as I see it, is just fraud and should be charged accordingly. An example: if I'm a confidence artist and I defraud somebody with a stock-picking scam, should it matter whether I tell them I have a computer model picking the stocks or if I tell them I have a psychic doing it? Isn't fraud just fraud?

Stuffed Lion Provides Bad Legal Advice

Some stories are so ridiculous I can't help but share them. According to this article from the Edmonton Journal, a "religiously extreme" Christian couple lost custody of a child after they refused legal aid and instead accepted the assistance of a stuffed lion that they believe came "directly from God." There's that old saying - a person who acts as their own attorney has a fool for a client. But what about a person who lets a stuffed lion act as their attorney? Clearly, it did not prove to be a winning legal strategy.

After the woman found she was pregnant, she told a social worker her husband sometimes choked her to make her stop crying, had once tied her hands and covered her mouth with tape, which scared her, and occasionally beat her, court heard. She told the worker her husband grew up in a cult and believes sexual relations between children should be encouraged and that they “role-play” sins where she plays the victim and he plays the perpetrator, court heard.

When interviewed by police about the allegations, she denied them. Her husband said that once, when he was frustrated with her and had had a few drinks, he put one hand over her throat and the other over her mouth. This led to a complaint to the Ministry of Children and Family Development. It appears that, due to their strong religious beliefs, they are intolerant of those who do not espouse identical views. This includes other Christians.

After the birth of their daughter, the parents refused all medical tests and procedures for her, including a hearing test, blood test, eye drops and a vitamin K shot. The mother also said she was unwilling to have her vaccinated. Because of concerns over family violence and mental health, the ministry monitored the family. The couple refused to have parental capacity assessments, despite a court order.

A "Conjuring Arts" Chair

A university in Canada is looking to fill a new "conjuring arts" chair. I was excited for two reasons when I came across the story. First, for just a minute, I thought that the article was talking about Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. I attended Saint Olaf College just across town from Carleton, and I have to say, it really is about time that Carleton College assembled an Aleister Crowley collection even half as good as Saint Olaf's - which, unlike Carleton, is ironically a Christian (ELCA Lutheran) college. Second, before I read it I thought that the university might be trying to a curriculum in Western Esotericism, like only a handful of schools around the world have done. But I was disappointed on both counts. Carleton University is in Canada, and it sounds like "conjuring arts" in this context has nothing to do with, well, actual conjuring.

So what approach will the new chair take? “The conjuring arts” is not a term used by experts in the field, and the job’s terms of reference are somewhat vague. The president of Carleton, Alastair Summerlee, who has a great wizard name and actually looks extremely wizard-like, told CTV News that the scope of the job is “incredibly broad.” He says that the university is open to candidates from a variety of backgrounds, and would, in addition, like to find someone who will “use magic as entrée into the world of perception and deception.” This would include studying the techniques of persuasion used in politics and the media. So you might finally be able to get credit for your essay comparing every Trump administration official to a Harry Potter villain. But also, as Professor Magliocco points out, it could help us understand “how large groups of people come to believe things that are impossible and even dangerous.” She says this is of real value in an era when fake news is rampant and when thoughts and prayers are offered as the solution to school shootings.

The chair is named after Allan Slaight, one of Canada’s richest people, whose family foundation put up $2 million for it. (Carleton matched that sum from its own budget.) Before he sold out over a decade ago, Slaight was the owner of a broadcasting empire that included dozens of radio stations, a couple of television stations, and, at one point, the Toronto Raptors. Slaight spent several years when he was young touring the prairies as a performing magician, and he has remained obsessed with stage magic. He has edited and published two massive books on legendary Canadian magician Stewart James, which one reviewer has described as “the biggest books in the history of magic literature.” If academic opinion is divided over the new chair, the practicing magicians VICE spoke to were, perhaps not surprisingly, all enthusiastic — although one of them admitted he initially thought the Slaight family had donated an actual magic chair, which would have, let’s face it, been even cooler.

Canada to Legalize Witchcraft

After a long process of legal review, Canada is moving towards eliminating many outdated laws. One of those laws is the prohibition on pretending to "exercise or to use any kind of witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment or conjuration." This is an old law that was probably originally put in place to target fraud involving claims of paranormal powers, but the law is so vaguely written that it can be applied to cases where no scamming is involved. It could, for example, render any performance of Shakespeare's The Tempest illegal - because after all, any actor playing Prospero is pretending to use magick.

“One of the provisions that’s being removed in this bill is pretending to practise witchcraft,”Steve Coughlan, a professor at Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University, told the House of Commons committee that studied the bill. “It probably hadn’t been prosecuted for 30 or 40 years, and about six months ago, some police officer in Toronto laid that charge. At some level, there’s an element of randomness as to when the lesser-known offences come up,” Prof. Coughlan added. “It’s somebody looking at the index, doing a search online, and trying to find it. It’s possible that the crown can then look at it and say, ‘You know what? That’s the wrong one.’”

The plan to repeal archaic laws from the criminal code was well received in Parliament. “One must wonder about the existing laws regarding the practice of witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment, or conjuration” Wayne Stetski Kootenay, the NDP MP for Columbia, BC, told parliament. “In addition to the fact that it impinges on the rights of some religions, and would confuse the U.S. President who is certain that he is the target of a witch hunt, this might also hurt Harry Potter cosplayers; Dungeons and Dragons “larpers”, which I do not know much about but which my staff assure me is a thing; and others for whom sorcery is an entertainment. This is a good law to be rid of.”

But some opposition Conservative Party members were not thrilled with the idea. “We all chuckle and laugh, but I can understand why the party of Mackenzie King would want to make legal the practice of witchcraft, sorcery, and talking with people who have passed from this world, as Mackenzie King enjoyed doing,” Peter Van Loan, the Conservative MP for York, Simcoe, Ontario, said. “The concern is, and we have all heard stories like this, that people use these kinds of fraudulent witchcraft powers to persuade people that, for example, if they put $10,000 in an envelope, which they say will be burned but they slide it under the table instead, he or she will be saved from whatever curse they say the person is under.”

The thing is, I'm well aware that there are scammers who claim paranormal powers in order to hoodwink their targets. But shouldn't the example cited just be charged as fraud? There's no reason for Canada to have a special law for "fraud involving witchcraft" when fraud in general is already illegal, any more than there would be a reason to have a special law for "fraud involving envelopes." It's not like once this is repealed, there will be nothing left to charge these scammers with.

Furthermore, the idea that laws like this do no harm is just not true. Keeping them on the books means that law enforcement can go after Wiccan, Pagans, and anyone else who practices magick as a spiritual discipline any time they want. Canada is not necessarily as progressive as a lot of Americans think, especially with regard to religion. Wicca, Paganism, and even larger polytheistic traditions like Hinduism are not considered "real religions," and therefore have no legal protections.

A while back I covered the case of Dominique Smith, a Winnipeg woman who runs a metaphysical shop. Her shop was repeatedly vandalized by Christians, but the police were slow to take action. Technically, a police force more willing to persecute Smith could easily claim that her entire business is illegal under this law, and even though that hasn't happened, the fact that it could should be extremely troubling. Canada needs to step up and start protecting members of minority religions, and repealing this law will be a good start.

Canada to Kill "Zombie Laws"

Just like the United States, Canada has some weird laws that are profoundly out of date. Canadian legislators are planning to do something about that, with a push to kill so-called "zombie laws." One of these is a law against "pretending to practice witchcraft." Back in 2009, I covered a case in which the law was used to prosecute a confidence artist running a scam. Also to be repealed are laws against dueling and publishing crime comics.

But once the Liberal government’s updates and changes to the code pass through Parliament, Canadians across the land will be free to challenge whomever they wish to a duel, pretend to practise witchcraft — or even publish crime comics (the legacy of a moral panic in the 1950s).

Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould on Tuesday announced some “obsolete” and “redundant” Criminal Code provisions the Liberals intend to remove.

This is part of a broader suite of amendments to the code Wilson-Raybould said will strengthen sexual assault provisions and ensure every new government bill tabled in the House of Commons is accompanied by a “Charter statement” laying out effects the new bill could have on Charter rights.

Canada’s Criminal Code – the law setting out most of the country’s criminal offences – was first enacted in 1892, when the country, its citizens and their customs were, well, really different than now.

To be clear, fraud will still be illegal in Canada. There just won't be a separate witchcraft-specific law against it. Likewise, it will still be illegal to shoot at someone or kill them in a duel. The point is that these old statutes are weird special cases that are already covered under existing, functional laws. As for the prohibition on crime comics, that one is just pointless censorship and its repeal won't hurt anyone one way or another. I'm not sure that it's even enforced - you can get comics in Canada, right?

Simplifying the penal code helps everybody here, except maybe prosecutors who rely on its complexity to get more convictions. Repealing the "pretending to practice witchcraft" law also closes the door to possible religious persecution. Defrauding someone is defrauding them, full stop. There's nothing about magick or witchcraft that warrants special treatment.

An Aurora Named Steve

Over the years I've come to the conclusion that I must look like a "Steve." Nobody ever calls me anything else besides my real name, and if somebody can't remember "Scott," "Steve" is always what they guess. Thanks to a group of Canadian aurora borealis enthusiasts, it sounds like I now share my fake name with a mysterious phenomenon lighting up the sky over Canada - a strip of aurora light that these enthusiasts decided to name "Steve."

The story started with a group of Canadians who were enthusiastic about finding and photographing the most stunning displays of the aurora borealis, or northern lights. They formed a Facebook group called Alberta Aurora Chasers to share information about the best and brightest displays. A few years ago, some began to notice that Steve — a strip of light that appeared a bit farther south than the northern lights — was something special.

After that, scientists began to take notice. “The really cool thing about this is the social media providing a nice bridge between the scientific community and these amateurs, who are incredibly talented observers of the night sky,” Dr. Donovan said. He explained that Steve is a strip of ionized gas moving through the air at about four miles per second, with temperatures as high as 10,800 degrees Fahrenheit — as hot as the earth’s core. It is about 16 miles wide and thousands of miles long, flowing from east to west across Canada.

Photographs of the phenomenon, most of which show Steve as a glowing ribbon of neon light, have captivated aurora borealis enthusiasts in Canada and far beyond.

I bring this up here on Augoeides in part because I'm a science enthusiast, and in part because as I see it, this is an example of a "paranormal phenomenon" as I employ the term. It's not "supernatural," but rather an unusual observation that doesn't fit the normal pattern. Scientists know that it's there and know what it's made of, and so far they haven't figured out why it behaves the way it does. But I'm confident that they eventually will.

As I see, the same is true of magical effects. Spell results aren't necessarily as obvious as, say, a glowing strip of light running across the sky - though that would be pretty damn cool to cast. The point is that anybody with a modicum of talent who has done the work should know firsthand that there's something to it. The nature of magick remains an open question, but I'm confident that once we work out consciousness, we'll be close to a definitive explanation.

Not a Real Religion?

American liberals like to talk about how progressive Canada is compared to the United States. In some respects this is true, but religious freedom is apparently not one of them. According to this article from Patheos, Wicca, Paganism, and other polytheistic religions like Hinduism have no religious rights at all. They are not recognized by the government, so they are not considered "real religions." This has all sorts of legal implications, from a lack of protection under hate crime statues to no legal recognition as charitable religious organizations.

So essentially, in terms of Canadian law what you have is akin to the situation that Dominionists are pushing for here - a sort of de facto "Christian supremacy" in which they can get away with whatever they want as long as they are going after members of minority religions. The article covers the case of Dominique Smith, the owner of a metaphysical shop catering to Pagans and other occultists in Winnipeg. Christians have targeted the shop since it opened and have vandalizing the place with seeming impunity. But because of the dubious status of Pagan religions in Canada, police have apparently been hesitant to take action.

Dominique’s window has been broken three times since she opened her shop six years ago. She is just a small store owner, trying to serve a small but visible community in Manitoba. She can’t afford to replace her windows, which cost thousands of dollars, every year. If the bullies who are attacking her store are trying to drive her out of business because they don’t like what she’s selling, they’re succeeding. The Winnipeg Police Department told CBC that to them, a hate crime involving property would require the commission of the mischief to be based on bias, prejudice or hate based on religion, race, colour or national or ethnic origin. But Dominique can’t get equal protection under the law because, apparently, witchcraft is not a real religion. Canada still has laws on the books about “defrauding people with witchcraft.”

In many ways, Canada is a very progressive country. But in some ways it’s deploringly backward. For instance, did you know that there is no Pagan faith organization that is officially recognized as a Religious Charity by the Canadian federal government? Religious Charities get a variety of tax breaks under the law; but more importantly, they cannot be denied access on the basis of religion. And there are other benefits that are subtle and not well-known. For instance, the clergy of any recognized Religious Charity are welcomed as Chaplains in the Canadian Armed Forces. This was a career path I seriously considered, but that’s when I found out that you had to be part of a recognized Religious Charity to do it. The Wiccan Church of Canada has been trying for this recognition for more than thirty years. Incidentally, the Hindu Cultural Society in Vancouver doesn’t have this status either. No polytheistic religion, to my knowledge, does.

Meet the Thunderbird

One of the less well-known North American cryptids is the thunderbird, described as a bird larger than any currently known species strong enough to lift and possibly carry off a small child. Stories about thunderbirds attempting to lift children are generally regarded as tall tales, since as far as anyone knows none of these reported attempts have ever been successful and it's hard to imagine a known species of bird could be such a powerful flyer. Birds are built light, which is why they can fly in the first place.

Skeptics generally brush off reports of attempted abductions and note that it is easy to mistake the size of a flying bird in the air. They suggest that thunderbird sightings are simply sightings of large known raptor species that for whatever reason, possibly optical illusions, appear to be larger than their actual size. North America is home to a number of such large species such as several varieties of eagles and condors. In this case, it appears that the skeptics are right.

This video shows an actual "thunderbird attack" captured in Montreal that conforms to most reports, in which a large bird successfully lifts but is unable to carry off a child. Furthermore, the responsible bird can clearly be identified - it's a golden eagle, a common large North American raptor. While it seems remarkable that a bird weighing perhaps ten pounds could possibly be strong enough to lift a child, here it is. Golden eagles grow larger than the bird shown here as well, with potential wingspans of more than seven and a half feet.

The ability to lift prey heavier than their own body weight is a huge evolutionary advantage for eagles. Their normal hunting tactics consist of surveying prey from the air and then swooping down to grab it with their powerful talons. While a human child is larger than the bird's usual prey, clearly they're not above making an occasional attempt if the opportunity presents itself. So this is a classic case of a cryptid legend springing from the actions of a real animal - and a well-recognized one at that.

UPDATE: So it turns out that video is a fake, created by an animation studio in Montreal that has now taken credit for it. Still, I remain convinced that eagles are the best explanation for the stories behind thunderbird attacks, and that the event fabricated in the video is plausible as rendered. A child would be too heavy for an eagle to carry for much of a distance, but it's not impossible that one might decide to try.

Rare Witch-Hunting Manual Uncovered

The most famous witch-hunting manual used by secular courts during Europe's "witch craze" was the Malleus Maleficarum, or "Hammer of the Witches." It outlined various ideas about witchcraft drawn from the popular culture of the day and detailed the general procedure used for witchcraft prosecutions. However, the Malleus, published in 1487, was not the only such book in use, but rather the most widely disseminated and thus the most well-known today. It drew on more obscure works such as Johannes Nider's Formicanus published fifty years earlier, and despite its fearsome reputation in fact rejected some of the most fanciful and ridiculous claims regarding the activity of witches.

Recently a more lurid and detailed witch-hunting manual was found in the University of Alberta library. This book was published twenty years before the Malleus in 1465 and is extremely rare, with only three other copies known. Its claims are also considerably more far-fetched. It includes descriptions of the supposed powers possessed by witches such as flying on broomsticks and conjuring lightning along with a comprehensive guide to extracting confessions from them under torture. Andrew Gow, the medieval history professor who discovered the book, admitted that he finds its contents so distasteful that he does not even like to come near it.

Entitled, Invectives Against the Sect of Waldensians — a name for a Christian sect that was confused with witches in 15th-century France — the manuscript is thought to have been written around 1465 by a monk in what is now France’s Burgundy region, possibly for England’s King Edward IV, said Gow. It is exceedingly rare — one of only four copies known to exist — and is thought to be one of the founding texts in the modern conception of witchcraft.

Bad Hypnotist

No, not bad as in "naughty" or "evil," bad as in "inept." An inexperienced hypnotist conducting a demonstration of mass hypnosis at a Quebec school somehow managed to leave a group of students in a trance after concluding the demonstration. In order to undo the effect, a more experienced hypnotist finally had to be called in after one of the students remained under for five hours.

Maxime Nadeau was forced to call on his mentor for assistance after the hypnotist could not reverse the condition of several 12 and 13-year-old girls at the Collège du Sacré-Coeur private school in Quebec. One of the girls was reportedly left in a trance for five hours. "Being in a trance is a state of well-being," Nadeau told the CBC's French-language service. "I wasn't stressed. I knew they would get out of it." Still, Nadeau eventually called in his mentor and trainer Richard Whitbread to reverse the effects.

"There were a couple of students who had their heads lying on the table and there were [others] who, you could tell, were in trance," Whitbread said. "The eyes were open and there was nobody home." In order to reverse the effect, Whitbread says he convinced the girls he was "re-hypnotizing" them and them brought them out of the trance "using a stern voice."

Now, one reason I classify this as inept is that I learned to hypnotize people while I was still in high school, and bringing people out of a trance is easy. I've never had any problem with it. The fact that Nadeau couldn't do it says volumes about his lack of skill, and it seems to me that somebody like him should not be demonstrating hypnosis to a bunch of kids. I'm sure that girls who remained under were good subjects, but that should cut both ways - a good hypnotic subject is more suggestible than a normal person, which means that they go both into and out of trances more readily.

Yet Another Fake Magician

As I've mentioned before, while I generally find that the "skeptic movement" consists mostly of closed-minded debunkers I still believe that they sometimes perform the valuable service of exposing frauds who use claims of magical powers to cheat their clients out of large sums of money. Like this individual, who has been charged with "pretending to practice witchcraft" under Canadian law.

Vishwantee Persaud allegedly defrauded a Toronto lawyer of tens of thousands of dollars by telling him she was the embodiment of the spirit of his deceased sister, come back to help him in business. Ms. Persaud now faces charges under a rarely used section of the criminal code for pretending to practice witchcraft.

“She said she came from a long line of witches and could do tarot-card readings,” says Detective Constable Corey Jones, who investigated the case. “It was through this that she cemented [the lawyer's] trust,” setting the stage for the fraud to follow, which, according to Det. Constable Jones, included claiming fictitious expenses such as law-school tuition and cancer treatments.

While it's easy to see how a law like this one could be used to persecute legitimate professional sorcerers, a reading of the facts of the case shows that Persaud is anything but. She appears to be a garden variety confidence artist who engaged in a number of fraudulent activities above and beyond her claims of paranormal powers.

The lawyer met Ms. Persaud, who claimed to be in law school, in early 2009 and started to mentor her. According to Det. Constable Jones, he probably gave Ms. Persaud more than $100,000 over the year.

Det. Constable Jones says the scheme came to a head when Ms. Persaud said they were going to make money hosting and providing security for certain celebrities at the Toronto International Film Festival. “That's where everything fell apart because of course no Hollywood celebrities showed up,” he says.

In fact, he points out, this kind of offence could lead to a simple charge of fraud, which carries longer jail terms and stiffer fines. As it stands, a conviction of pretending to practise witchcraft carries a maximum sentence of six months in jail and/or a $2,000 fine.

The article also mentions the unusual history of this particular law banning the fraudulent practice of witchcraft. The Canadian law dates back to 1892 and was specifically tailored to target confidence artists. Notably, the practice of any form of witchcraft, pretend or not, was illegal in Britain until 1954, so Canada seems to have been well ahead of the curve there.

“It's a historical quirk,” says Alan Young, a professor at Osgoode Hall Law School. Some sections of the Canadian criminal code reflect offences that were more prevalent centuries ago. When the code was enacted in 1892, witchcraft per se was no longer a punishable offence, he says, but lawmakers wanted to ensure witchcraft wasn't used as a cover for fraud.

Section 365 states that any one who fraudulently pretends to exercise or to use any kind of witchcraft, sorcery, or enchantment or who “undertakes, for a consideration, to tell fortunes … is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.”

“It's not really about occult activity,” Prof. Young says. “It's about defrauding people.”

Persaud is scheduled to appear in court on December 24th to answer the charges. It's good to see fraudulent magicians like her answering for their crimes, because situations like this reflect badly on all magical practitioners.

So remember that if you ever find yourself practicing magick in Canada you should make sure that you're doing it for real. If you're just pretending you could find yourself in trouble with the law.